Big print

It took awhile, but I finally allowed myself to make a Really Big Print with my Epson 4800. Wow! How can I make it so I can do this more often?

Why has it taken me so long? Quick answer: the consumables. I have barely used this printer, and all the ink tanks are verging on a quarter full (it takes half an ink cartridge just to charge the printer.) This is an expensive beast to feed. It runs about $500 to replace all the ink cartridges. Then there’s the paper.

I have been exceedingly reluctant to run but the smallest prints off my rolls of expensive fiber-like photo papers (the Museo and the Lexart). But Epson had a clever rebate program going with this printer. Buy $200 of media and get $300 back. Of course you’re going to spend several times the difference in ink to print on all that free media. Very clever. Epson isn’t in the business of selling printers. They’re in the business of selling ink. I’ve actually heard the Epson rep say this.

But the paper feels free, so I rolled out a 35" long panoramic print. The layered .psd file it came from runs about 800mb. But finally, I can see what’s going on in this image. I started with 10" wide RC prints that I had to take off my glasses and squint at to see, then I made some 15" wide ones off the inkjet (just 6" worth of paper with this format.) But these big ones. I like it. This is much bigger than anything I can make on silver.

Robin really likes seeing my dense "stick pictures" this big. "I can deal with the complexity when I can see it," she said. "Make some more."

Yeah, but how do I afford to frame them?

Comments

[David Adam Edelstein]

And when do we get to see these big ones???

[Tomasz]

This looks absolutely stunning. Could you provide me with the exact link to the printer model you were using, while I am not sure if Epson is using the same model symbols over here, in Europe.

[Eric Hancock]

That looks great.

[Christian Kline]

and I thought 13" x 19" loked great!
that looks stunning. even in a photo of a print.